Week 8: He Doesn't Drink... Wine
Week 8: He Doesn't Drink... Wine Year 735, First Moon, Day 6-7 When we left off... After another sleepless night, Nars looked much the worse for wear. Quintus, on the other hand, spent a restful and enlightening evening at the Blue Water Inn, safe behind the palisade walls of Vallaki. When Sir Quintus left the town at sunrise, he journeyed to the nearest crossroad and joined up with the rest of his companions over breakfast, with good news to share: the inn keepers are almost definitely (probably, maybe, possibly) Wereravens, and they were willing to help sneak you back into town to save Ireena from Izek Strazni, AKA Demon Hand Joe. The plan involved a trip to the Wizards of Wine vineyard, to sort out the supply shortage plaguing the countryside, and then – not at all like Dwarves fleeing Mirkwood – you would use the barrels to bribe some guards and slipped unnoticed into town again. Unfortunately, Nars was way too tired to undertake another quest without some sleep first, and that did lead to a dilemma: he could sleep in the Khazan Tower, assuming the nightmares were magical in nature, but it would split the party, and time was of the essence. Already, you can see that your Vistani blood-magic is fading. Ulfar proposed that all of you should journey to the tower to rest, aided by the Spirits of th Elk, which could theoretically still get you to the Winery by sundown. With the help of Fabio the Celestial Camel and some good navigational insights from Clyde, you made it back to the tower by brunch (which is not a real time, and should not have been counted). Once there, you found a Vistani Wagon sitting outside. Ulfar did a preliminary investigation, then climbed the tower (to avoid the golems inside) where he discovered an injured Vistani woman attempting to close her wounds. She was fearful and guarded, but after the promise of healing she warmed up a little. Ezmerelda d’Avenir 'was very grateful (and thirsty) after Selgaard laid his hands all up on her, and she shared a bit about her experiences, and her search for her missing mentor. She sustained her injuries attempting to enter Castle Ravenloft and kill Strahd – he will hunt her now, so she has to run; she was also very interested to hear that'Rictavio the bard had headed back to Vallaki, and hinted that you might be able to find her there too. At least in the immediate future. After Nars’ nap, Ezmerelda did you all one last solid by letting you copy her map. Well, try to copy. None of you were very good at it, but Clyde got a good enough look at the thing to safely navigate you between the Wizards of Wine and the Tower. Ulfar repaid that generosity by picking her pocket, and he got a look at a page from Rudolph van Richten’s journal for his trouble. He shared his information with the group, and you all decided to stop pretending that you didn’t know Rictavio was secretly''' Van Richten''' in disguise. Nars rode ahead on Fabio to return the stolen page, an act which impressed Ezmerelda less than he would have liked, and then you all journeyed down the Old Svallich Road to the Wizards of Wine. Approaching the winery, an lone figure appeared from the edge of a dark, creepy (these adjectives are basically redundant in Ravenloft). Shrouded in mist, he beckoned you toward him, but a sense of general genre-savviness and self-preservation told you to stay away. That was a mistake. When you arrived at the winery, an army of like 100 twig blights and evil druids were doing their best impressions of meth-heads, poisoning the supplies, and generally being dicks. It wasn’t too difficult to clear them out, particularly as none of them could even touch Quintus, but Selgaard managed to upset some of the local ravens in the process. Nars drummed up some kind of beast magic and started talking like a bird, but when he stopped doing that he had learned the name of Baba Lysaga or was it Lasagna? The battle ended with a lot more questions than answers, particularly about the evil-as-fuck staff that Ulfar is carrying around. From the mists, you saw the waving figure again, and this time went willingly towards it. It was your old friend Daran Edermath! He and the Martikov family who run the vineyard had escaped the druids, but they had bigger problems brewing. Firstly, the last of the magical “seeds” that allow the grapes to grow and the wine to flow through Barovia is missing. They know that Baba Lysaga and her malicious scarecrows got one, and one vanished a long time ago, but the last one – they think – is at the evil druid HQ over on Yester Hill. Without it, they’ll have to abandon the vineyard and all the grapes will die. The Loose Association of Individuals agreed to retrieve the Seed, in exchange for several barrels of wine to help you sneak back into Vallaki. More planning than that you couldn’t complete, because it was almost night time.